Last weekend (4/5 and 4/6) Tom Ritz and I finally pulled off the trip we
had planned for the weekend following the "Storm of the Century",
climbing up and skiing down the Northwest Couloir on Mt. Belford.
Saturday morning found us pulling into the Vicksburg Trailhead parking.
We were the only car in the lot. After a bit of gear sorting we hefted
too heavy packs and started up the trail. We were able to put the skis
on as soon as we crossed the bridge over Clear Creek and signed into the
logbook. The register was showing about one group per weekend was
heading up the Missouri Gulch drainage this winter. The trail was well
covered with snow and had been broken by snowshoes in the recent past so
our progress up was fairly quick up to the first place we came out of
the trees and into an open meadow at about 10,800 feet. Here the trail
breaking began, but the snow was well consolidated and the skinning up
was not too hard. At about 10,800 feet we also encountered the first of
want would be many avalanche debris fields. This one had slid from over
a thousand feet above us on the opposite side of Missouri Gulch and had
jumped across the drainage and continued to slide down the far side.
We hit tree line at about 11,200 feet and with the wind picking up and
the snow beginning to fall decided to make camp in the lee of an old
cabin ruin to stay out of the wind.

Sunday morning dawned with clearing skies and mild (20 degree) temps.
It looked to be a good day for going to the top so we strapped on the
skis and began skinning up towards the base of the Northwest Couloir
route. The snow overnight had left about 2-3 inches of new snow over
the sun baked base below so the skinning was quite easy. We passed a
number of avalanche debris fields as we proceeded towards the base of
the couloir. Here we found another large debris field from a large
avalanche that had come down the Northwest Couloir. All of the debris
appeared to be over a week old, but we could tell that significant
slides had occurred in the area, making us quite thankful we had
postponed our trip until this weekend. Based on the snow evaluation we
had been doing as we skinned up to the couloir, we felt pretty safe in
proceeding into the couloir and decided to skin up to the first step in
the couloir and see how things looked. The snow was very solid with a
strong consolidated layer covered with a few inches of new snow. I
don't think we broke through the consolidated layer all day long. We
decided to keep going up the couloir. The skin up was quite easy with
the exception of a few narrow steep steps requiring a bit of side
stepping until we got to about 13,300 feet. Here the gully opens out
onto a wide, open face and the wind had stripped most of the new snow
away making the climb up on skis difficult. At about 13,500 feet we
decided to take off the skis and hike up the exposed rocks to the left
side of the snowfield. In hindsight we would have made better progress
by putting on our crampons and going right up the snowfield. The snow
was well consolidated and would have made for easy climbing. About this
time the wind really picked up, blowing steadily in the 40 mph range.
With the summit so close we made one last push and reached the top at
12:30 pm, about 4 hours after leaving our tree line camp at 11,200 feet.
With the strong winds and snow picking up, we only spent a few minutes
on the top. Just long enough to look towards Oxford and decide it was
too far away for today. We quickly decended on foot to about 13,800'
and then straped on our skis for the decent back to camp. The first
1,000 feet of skiing were tough. The snow had increased significantly
and with the wind blowing it made for a very disorienting white out
conditions. After a number of traverses and kick turns across the face,
we made it off the face and back into the couloir. Here the walls of
the couloir gave us some protection from the wind and blowing snow and
we were able to start making turns down the snow filled gully. By this
time the couloir had collected about 4 inches of snow over the old
consolidated layer and the skiing was great all the way back down to our
camp. We broke camp and skidded down the narrow trail to the car (still
the only car in the lot), making out by 5pm. With the wind and snow on
top, we didn't take the time to find the register, but based on the
trailhead register, we were the second group this year to summit Mt.
Belford.